packman-net: a distributed, open-access and scalable ... · • packman data have 11 columns of...

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PACKMAN-Net: A Distributed, Open-Access

and Scalable, Network of User-Friendly

Space Weather Stations.

M.-P. Zorzano1,2,

J. Martín-Torres 1,3, T. Mathanlal1, A. Vakkada

Ramachandran1 and J.-A. Ramirez-Luque1.1Atmospheric Science Group, Department of Computer Sciences, Electrical and Space

Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden, 2 Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC), Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain.

3 Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC-UGR), Armilla, Granada, Spain.

PSIDA Planetary Science Informatics and Data Analytics. 24th -26th April 2018 St. Louis, USA

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THE PACKMAN (Particle

Counter K-index Magnetic

Anomaly)

Instrument

Space Weather on Earth

The observations acquired by PACKMAN will be used to provide open access, real time

information, for:

1) education and public awareness of space weather phenomena;

2) to compare with Earth climate observations;

3) to provide real-time information of space weather variability for potential damage to

infrastructures (telecommunications, power generation facilities, aviation, transport, etcetc.);

4) to monitor natural radiation sources at multiple environments;

5) to monitor the variability of the Pfotzer maximum height during different stages of solar activity

and seasons and

6) This project may serve as a reference for future scalable networks where multiple

instruments are deployed at different sites or conditions and with different initiation

times, and where the informational value increases by adhering to a common PDS4

format and analysing the data in a concurrent way.

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PACKMAN monitoring approach

Arctic balloon campaigns to

monitor the variability of space

radiation between 10 km and

40 km height.

Complemented with surface

measurements

at multiple latitudes.

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Atmospheric and surface observations

Atmosphere

• Orbiter based observations are

available on-line, in almost real

time (graphical).

• Ionosphere monitoring is available

on-line (graphical)

• There is a lack of measurements

of systematic radiation profiles in

the lower layers of the atmosphere

in the Arctic.

Surface

• Only neutron counters (from

galactic cosmic rays) are available

on-line (graphical).

• K-index (geomagnetic variability)

is monitored as a proxy for solar

activity at multiple latitudes.

• It is more complex to have access

to crude data in real time. These

instruments are operated by

scientific institutions.

Purpose: deploy network of PACKMAN with real time on-line data access, deploy

equivalent instrument on balloon campaign with access on-line to the data.

Compare time-variability sequence from satellite to surface, and weather/climate

records.

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Circumpolar long

duration

stratospheric

balloon campaigns

1 week duration

space weather

stratospheric

measurements.

Started from

ESRANGE

(Sweden) operated

by SSC.

HEMERA European

call for

instruments.

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User community

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Planet Surface

Planet atmosphere and orbit

Planet sub-surface

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Open access to planetary data

• Because of our heritage from the and the REMS

Mars Science Laboratory (NASA) and the HABIT

ExoMars mission (ESA): the PACKMAN data will

have a similar structure as the PDS4 protocol that is

used by NASA/ESA for planetary exploration.

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PACKMAN data volume

• Data storage: 132 Kilobytes/Day

• PACKMAN data have 11 columns of measurement that start with a time stamp and

latitude/coordinate/elevation information.

• Every new line corresponds to a new time stamp, with measuring interval of 1 minute in UTC.

• All PACKMAN nodes provide observations with the same time stamp, and same observation

cadency.

• 365 days of continuous measurements/year.

• Scalable network:

– Internal nodes uploading daily.

– External nodes uploading at blocks of 3 months (pre-acceptance required).

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PACKMAN data requirements

Data uploading

(Instrument)

• Open access –“pre-

authorized” users- data

storage.

• Scalable (over time more

nodes).

• Automatic PDS4

labelling

Data downloading (Science/

Infrastructures/ Education/

Outreach)

• Global: open access

• Online tools for quick

preliminary analysis

(online representation,

online fast processing)

and comparison of

multiple nodes-data.

• Accessibility to multiple

simultaneous instrument

observations.

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Open-access pre-authorized data uploading

• Owncloud: Private Owncloud server for third party users

to upload their PACKMAN Data automatically using the

official Owncloud client.

• Automation tools: Using Python scripts to create the

repositories and put the data uploaded to owncloud and

check new files everyday.

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Labelling PDS4

• Label creation: Use of MakeLabelsPDS4 tool created by Dan

Scholes (PDS GeoSciences Node) using Excel to populate the

PDS4 XML fields over XML Templates

XML Template Example

PACKMAN Data File

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Online quick analysis: cross-instrument

comparison (multi latitud)

• Online data visualization

• (https://atmospheres.research.ltu.se/pes1)

Online plotting of

different variables using

DYGRAPHS API

(www.dygraphs.org)

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Summary: PACKMAN-Net

• This is an example of planetary instrumentation relevant data

(Space Weather) in our planet which needs a dedicated scalable

data archiving and processing architecture that adheres to the

PDS4 standard.

• Furthermore, this project may be used to benchmark the design of

archiving, scalable, networks of future planetary instrumentation

observations of the Moon or mars or Earth orbiters.

• This project will bridge the gap between society and research,

adding new stake holders such as teaching institutions (high

schools, universities), or industry and infrastructures

representatives.